By Zack Gibney, Senior Staff Writer
• April 3, 2022
The two teams playing for the national title are a couple of familiar faces — Kansas and North Carolina. While the two blue bloods have been on the national stage before, their paths to New Orleans this season have been vastly different.
With the men’s NCAA basketball tournament set to begin in earnest on Thursday, The Pitt News sports staff predicts who will cut down the nets in New Orleans on April 4.
Pitt volleyball’s longest NCAA Tournament run in program history ended with a 3-1 loss in the National Semifinal to Nebraska early Friday morning at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
After a strong start to the NCAA tournament, No. 5-seeded Pitt men’s soccer fell yet again to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament in penalty kicks. It was the team’s third straight loss to the Fighting Irish.
No. 3 Pitt volleyball started slow but finished strong in an NCAA Tournament-opening sweep of UMBC. The Panthers’ win on Friday night set up a postseason rivalry match with Penn State on Saturday.
During Sunday’s NCAA volleyball tournament selection show, the Panthers earned the No. 3 national seed, meaning they are guaranteed to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in Pittsburgh.
Pitt men’s soccer will enter the 2021 NCAA tournament as a No. 5 seed with a bye in the first round. The Panthers regular-season success has them poised to make their mark on the NCAA College Cup.
Coming off its third loss of the season, No. 2 Pitt men’s soccer bounced back convincingly in the team’s opening match of the NCAA tournament, defeating the Monmouth Hawks 6-1.
